It is principally desirable in bending apparatuses and especially such for bending rod-shaped workpieces to have the largest possible bending space so that there is also sufficient space for example for turning down the longest possible leg of a bending part when bending needs to be produced which is larger than 90° without parts of the bending machine representing an interference contour.
A bending machine is known from DE 602 19 651 T2 (corresponding to EP 1 434 660 B1) in which a feed device and two cutting devices are provided upstream of the bending head, one of which is fastened to the frame of the feed device and is displaceable with the same in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the workpiece to be processed. A further cutting device, which is stationary however, is attached between the feed device and the bending head, which cutting device represents a considerable interference contour however when a long leg is to be bent by more than 90°.
The arrangement of FR 2602160 A1 comprises a feed device and a cutting device which is displaceable along the longitudinal central axis of the workpiece in order to produce workpieces cut to size for the bending machine. The bending machine itself consists of a gripper unit and a displaceable bending head (or also two displaceable bending heads). This known bending installation requires overall a lot of space. Moreover, the bending head or bending heads rotate about the workpiece and considerably limit the available bending space. Moreover, a relatively long straight end piece also remains between the cut and the bending head in the construction as described there, which is also often undesirable.
DE 601 03 632 (EP 1 272 293 B1) describes a bending machine with a folding shank which is displaceable along the longitudinal central axis of the workpieces and to which a cutting device is fastened on the side facing away from the bending head, which cutting device can be displaced with the same. As a result of the length of the folding shank, this always leads to the consequence that there will always be a relatively long straight end piece of the workpiece between the cutting point and the bending head, which is often undesirable.
A bending apparatus of the kind mentioned above is known from DE 690 03 116 T2 (EP 0 379 030 B1), in which both the feed device and the bending unit can be lifted or lowered. A relatively long straight end piece of the workpiece remains in this known bending machine too between cutting point and bending head, with there also always being a very large distance between the feed unit and the bending head which may lead to difficulties especially in processing very thin wires.